Anger Management
by idioticonion
Summary: Two AU-ish stories that explore Barney's Anger Management issues. Spoilers for The Fight Part 1 , Benefits and Three Days Of Snow Part 2
1. Fight or Flight

**1. Fight or Flight (Ep 10 - The Fight)**

He wants her, but not like this.

She's clinging to his arm and rubbing his thigh, touching his face and giggling.

She looks like Robin Scherbatsky and, this close (holy crap), she smells like Robin Scherbatsky. But when he looks into her eyes all he can see is Robin Sparkles.

Not that he wouldn't totally hit Robin Sparkles.

He wonders why he's trying to talk himself out of this.

Trouble is, he really _is_ a badass. There's a part of him, a significantly fucked up part of him, that's so full of rage it would hurt or horrify his friends. In his youth, it was barely contained (there were a few memorable incidents after Shannon that had troubled even James) but now he's learned to compress it, to harness it, to channel it. He's made a career out of it.

Normally - well, as _normally_ as his social life ever really gets - no one gets a glimpse of that side of him. Certain things trigger a mini (controlled) set of explosions: Fear of being left behind and alone, a sense of familial loyalty towards his Mom and his brother.

Robin never gets a glimpse of this and that's the way he likes it. Barney has carefully crafted this prissy, metrosexual persona over more than a decade. He's the kind of guy who'd never throw a punch at his friend's face.

(He doesn't want to admit to how _good_ it felt to hit Ted. Because he promised himself, not long after Shannon, that he'd never again raise his hand to another human being in anger. Or a foot. Or an elbow. He's tasted blood - his own, that of others - and now Ted's is decorating his knuckles)

The trouble is that Robin has blurred the lines. She sits there, playing with her hair, flirting with him, pawing him, giving him attention because (she thinks) he got into a fight with Ted and Doug and it's all a lie - but it's closer to the truth than Robin will ever, ever know.

Ted hangs around after Marshall and Lily leave, talking crap, bouncing with piss and vinegar, chest puffed out like a fighting bulldog. Part of Barney wants him to stay because he knows that as soon as Ted leaves, all his resistance will crumble and he'll take Robin home. Part of him wants Ted to get the hell out of there already.

But the part of Barney that's one-hundred percent pure-blooded alpha-male has been awoken, snarling and ready for action. So Barney looks Ted right in the eye and suggests that they all go back to his place for a Bruce Willis marathon.

The (considerable) part of Ted that's beta-male whimpers and withdraws with barely a flicker. Ted's smile fades and he shrugs because he doesn't really understand what's just happened, so he calls it a night, leaving a half-finished bottle of beer behind him.

Barney turns slowly to Robin with a hard, uncompromising smile. She should know what she's in for. This won't be like the last time. There is no Simon, no tears, no arm around her shoulder. If she takes him up on this, she can't exactly expect mercy.

Robin grabs her purse, rises to her feet and can't seem to leave the bar fast enough.

*--*--*

He wants her like this.

In the cab back to his place he's got twenty minutes to show her what he's got - kisses which become increasingly brutal, his tongue versus her tongue, his lips and teeth conquering hers. He's stronger, much stronger than he looks - skinny but wiry, all bone and lean muscle. When he uses that strength, that energy, when he focuses it down to one, sharp pressure point, he feels as though he's the fulcrum that can tilt the world.

He tilts the world from under her.

As he kisses her, it sends a jolt of pain across his cheekbone, straight into his dick. There's a masochistic/sadistic impulse at work that he'll never try to understand, but it powers him, wires him up and leaves him thrumming.

Robin's staggering a little as they emerge from the cab into the cold night air. He drags her, a vice-like grip on her upper arm, past his doorman and into the elevator. He pushes her back hard against the glass inside, jabbing the button for his floor as he steals her breath with another hard, invasive kiss. When he pulls away, she's wide-eyed and uncertain. She doesn't recognise him.

Good.

There are lots of ways to let rage out. There are lots of ways to release the pressure in tiny little bits so that he can function like a normal human being.

And then there's sex.

As the door slams shut behind them and they stumble into his apartment, he growls one word: "Strip!"

It's not playful or ironic, it's not what she's used to. It's said in a voice that's used to being obeyed. She's got her sweater off over her head before she knows what she's doing. He sees her hesitate and gives her a hand, yanking the two halves of her blouse apart so that the buttons pop away and skitter across the floor.

This is the turning point - he'll either see outrage in her eyes and there will be a resounding slap, or…

She throws herself bodily at him, grabbing his face (his cheek - fucking _ow_ - shit that hurts) and sticks her tongue as far down his throat as it'll go.

Oh, she's his. For tonight, she's his bitch.

Makes a change…

Her fingers make short work of his shirt but after that he grabs her wrists. She's not taking control - she's got another role to play. She struggles (for show) but soon capitulates.

"Pants… off…" He breathes in her ear and she leaps to obey him so quickly that she almost loses her balance - he catches her, one arm around her waist, possessively. She moves to pull down her panties but he smiles and shakes his head, pushing her through into the bedroom. He doesn't even need to tell her to get to work on his own trousers. She kneels on the bed and slides her fingers over his leather belt, unbuckling it. She starts off slow, easing his pants over his hips but the rumble in his throat tells her to speed the hell up.

She goes down on him right away - no preamble - her breath covering the head of his penis, quickly followed by her tongue swirling around it, both hands on the shaft until she can settle, getting used to the size and shape in her mouth. He grabs a handful of soft hair and pulls viciously, the squeal she makes sending delicious vibrations through his balls and along his spine. He grimaces, lips pulled back over his teeth as her head bobs up and down, her long hair brushing against his bare thighs, holding, holding, holding until his toes curl and he has to push her back, too violently, so that she sprawls on the bed.

She pouts. She looks so _young_…

His smile (his sneer) shows her that she hasn't done anything wrong. It's just that when he comes, it'll be inside her, not in her mouth. He reaches for a condom, tears the wrapper with one hand (he can do pretty much anything one-handed) and rolls it on. His balls ache, pulse, stir the darkness inside him with their insistence. Robin's lying on her back but he doesn't want to look her in the eye when he does this. Despite her need, her willingness, she doesn't get to _see_ him…

He flips her onto her front and tears off her panties, one hand cupping her bare ass and squeezing it hard enough to leave a bruise. She moans, he can feel the uncertainty as he nudges her legs apart with his knee. No, he's not going to do _that_ to her, but she doesn't know that… He grins as he lets his penis settles into the cleft between her buttocks. Let her think it…

"On your knees…" He growls suddenly into her ear and she rises in one lithe moment (god, she's perfect) and her back presses into his chest and her breasts jiggle beneath her and he's wondering why he's still holding back.

He's been holding back.

He opens his eyes and lets the darkness rage through him.

Robin screams and she moans - whatever he's doing - hard, physical, brutal - she likes it. She's given in, surrendered so utterly and completely that he fucks her harder than he ever would if he had one ounce of control, than he would if he was still aware that it was Robin who's beneath him, that she's his _friend_.

He's fucking her like she's a fifty dollar hooker.

He's fucking her like she's disposable.

He's fucking her like he'll never have to see the bruises or see her wince the next time she sits down.

He's fucking her harder each instant and she _likes_ it…

He's fucking her full of rage and hatred and it gives him a kind of super-human control. He's not given his body this much freedom in a long, long time.

He's fucking her in ways that should probably be illegal.

Robin's screams go on and on and she bucks hard against him until he comes, fucking her right through her orgasm and out the other side until she's a quivering, boneless creature that he lets collapse back on to the bedding.

He feels a little spent, a little drained, but the power flows through him still. He's keyed up. He's just starting.

He pulls the condom off his wilting dick and knots it, tossing it into the trash.

Robin turns over, a little shakily, and he climbs off the bed, pulling on his pants.

"Uh… Shall I…? Get a cab…?" She says, in a little-girl voice. He's so far gone that it means nothing to him now. He'll be up for hours - working, playing video games, drinking red bull. He won't sleep now. The darkness rages inside him. He wonders vaguely if she can see it - if his irises have turned black?

He shrugs on his shirt. "Sure," he replies. It's clear that he doesn't want her to stay.

Part of him knows he'll probably regret it. But it's impossible for him to give her anything more than this tonight. He's a different person.

"Walk me out?" She asks, biting her lip. Robin Sparkles.

"Nah. Got work to do," he says, not even looking at her.

Her cheeks colour and she hunts around for her blouse, her pants, her torn underwear. He leaves her to it while he opens up his laptop, unblinking, mind buzzing and roiling and somewhere else, anywhere else but here in the apartment with her.

She doesn't say goodbye. The door closes with a gentle click.


	2. The Monster

** Monster (Ep 12, Benefits and Ep 13, Three Days of Snow)**

None of them understand why he's angry.

Lily thinks it's love. Lily thinks it's because he's been pining for Robin. She doesn't understand that he's been watching Robin hook up with other dudes for months now and he's been fine (well, as fine as he can ever be) and he's still managed to get through his own share of one-night-stands.

Ted thinks it's a Bro thing. Ted thinks that the more he talks to him, tells him (in excruciating fucking detail) everything he's doing with (to) Robin, it'll reassure Barney that he's not going to abandon him. Ted doesn't understand that Barney has watched his friend get closer and closer to the altar these past five years (he practically tripped over his last almost-wedding) and he never got this way when Ted was with Stella.

Robin thinks he's just naturally like this - the ticks, the confusion, the loss. She may even think it's because they slept together recently. He knows Robin would have gone another round with him. He knows that if it wasn't for Marshall, she would have fallen hard. He also knows that she's still a little disturbed by their encounter, which says more about Robin than it does about him. Sure, she's been a little distant since. Things haven't been the same between them. Oh, she laughs and smiles and pretends to get him but Barney can see the doubt in her eyes. If Marshall knew what she's let him do to her, he'd definitely call slut.

Marshall would be wrong, of course. But Marshall is the one who inadvertantly stopped it all. Marshall is the one who told Robin that the fight had been a lie and that was all that had saved her from the monster inside of him.

None of them understand him. None of them really know him. And Barney isn't stupid enough to not realise that most people, most human beings on the goddamn planet, probably think they are alone. But he suspects that most human beings don't want to take a baseball bat to the world and smash it up.

After Shannon, when he moved in with James for a while, Barney had lost control completely and kicked the crap out of three men in a bar before being picked up by the cops. When James came for him, no one would believe that Barney was to blame. How could he be? A thin, gangly, long-haired hippy-type who was softly spoken, articulate and remorseful was not that kind of guy - not the kind of guy who got arrested for assaulting three men who could crush him just by breathing in his direction. When James dragged him home, Barney had smashed everything in James' apartment that wasn't nailed down.

His brother had kicked him out. They hadn't spoken for a month.

The transition from student-Barney to fully-awesome Barney took a hell of a lot longer than he told his friends. He'd glossed over a good deal of the details.

One thing he remembers from that time, one bright, satisfying moment, is how it felt when he'd smashed up James's TV.

So when time gets screwed up and it feels like he's frozen in a set of still photographs - the bar, Ted's expression, Robin sitting so close to him, Lily's eyes, the door, the alley - when he's lost and drifting it's some kind of weird serendipity that there's a dumpster full of TVs right there in front of him.

He's stronger than he looks.

He hefts a TV, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood and he throws it down.

In the alley where he threw a punch at his best friend, he smashes a television.

In the place where he almost had sex in Ted's moving van, he takes out his rage on a defenceless household appliance.

It's not perfect but it does the job.

*--*--*

The trouble is, he feels so thin-skinned. Ever since he let the darkness out, it's like it's been in control of him again and he hates himself a little more each day. He's like an addict who's fallen off the wagon long after the twelve-step process helped him in recovery.

He's a slave to his emotions - to _feelings_. He's never been this bad, not even with Shannon.

And because he cares (he can't make himself not care) about Ted and Robin and because he can see himself being sidelined if (when) they get back together, he feels a piece of himself slipping away. Fun Barney, together Barney, cool-dude Barney is falling, falling, and when he flails in the air there's nothing to grab on to.

So he smashes televisions.

It's not a perfect solution but it releases the pressure a little bit. If he lets it build up then who knows what will happen?

One night, he gets to the alley and someone (bastard) has cleared the dumpster.

Barney looks around frantically for something, anything to smash. He hurts so hard from keeping the rage inside him that he can no longer think straight. Even thought his bruised cheek has healed weeks ago, it feels like it's pulsing, like there's raw fire shooting out of a crack in his skull.

(Has to let it out.. Let it out…)

One of the buildings behind McLaren's has scaffolding and plastic sheeting covering one side. He blinks and smiles. Without even thinking (he can't think, can't, hurts too much) he leaps up and grabs a bar, hoisting himself up on to the wooden planks so that he can swing himself up through a half-built window like an acrobat. Climbing through, heedless of the dust and jutting brickwork, he finds himself in what used to be a bathroom with a washbasin, toilet and a pile of tiles on the floor. He grabs a metal pipe, hefting it with one hand and begins to swing.

His vision greys out, goes red…

When he snaps back into reality his arms hurt. His biceps and forearms ache like crazy. His suit is ruined. The room is a mess.

There has to be a better way than this.

He thumbs his iPhone into life (smearing the screen with grit) and searches for a late-opening electronics store.

He'd better just learn some fucking self-control before he does something stupid.

*--*--*

None of them understand why he's no longer angry. They can all see he's hurting but it's a gentle hurt.

Mainly it's because of Ted. Even though he told Ted he wasn't in love with Robin (a lie, a pointless lie) his friend had broken off the friends-with-benefits arrangement immediately. Barney felt ashamed at how far he'd underestimated Ted. Even though he'd wanted for years to be Ted's brother, it was at that moment that it truly felt like he was.

He isn't quite sure if he has Ted's blessing to go for Robin but that's a bit academic now anyways.

Robin seems to get that Barney was upset about _something_. And the weirdness that's sprung up between them since the night of The Fight has dissipated. There's a truce on her side and so he steps forward and he goes with her for tacos and he smiles at her jokes even though he's dying inside. For one shining moment there, he really thought he might have a shot with her.

Perhaps he still does, if he can be patient? If he can keep the monster at bay?

It's easier now. The rawness he feels after sleeping with Robin again is fading. The darkness is squashed into a tiny ball and packaged up, child-friendly, PG-rated. It's a friendly sort of darkness.

He and Ted hit the bars to score chicks like Bros should. There's a closeness, a humour between them that he's never felt before and always wanted. As so, as the days pass, it gets easier.

Lily watches him sometimes, as if she doesn't quite get it but she can see just enough longing in him to reassure her that he's still a human being. She doesn't realise that as long as there are enough frivolous distractions (women, suits, money, booze) it's easy to be a human being.

The addict is back on the wagon.

At Ted and Robin's apartment, Barney's surfing the web when he notices that Playboy have published the list of their top party schools and he has an idea. Like most of his ideas it's a frivolous distraction; an end in itself.

A smile slowly spreads across his face and he wonders how long it'll take him to get five-in-a-row?

Bingo…


End file.
